As part of the OMG campaign, NASA scientists have been surveying water and ice conditions along the Greenland coast since 2015. The project's goal is to help scientists better understand the loss of ice experienced by the Greenland Ice Sheet and its many glaciers.

But until now, scientists had not been able to accurately map the ocean floor and temperature dynamics inside Inglefield Gulf. New data collected by the OMG survey showed the deeper layer of warm water found in Inglefield begins some 600 feet below the ocean surface. The water gets warmer as it gets deeper.

As the meltwater flows into the fjiord, it plunges down before rising back to the surface. Freshwater is more buoyant than saltwater. As it rises, the freshwater pulls warm subsurface water to the surface, further exposing Tracy's face to a plume of warm water.

"Most of the melting happens as the water rises up Tracy's face," Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a news release. "It eats away at a huge chunk of the glacier."